This week on the show we feature an interview with Panagioti, who is an organizer with the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons. From their website:

“The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP) is a collaboration with the Abolitionist Law Center. FTP’s mission is to conduct grassroots organizing, advocacy and direct action to challenge the prison system which is putting prisoners at risk of dangerous environmental conditions, as well as impacting surrounding communities and ecosystems by their construction and operation. At this time, FTP is focused on opposing the construction of a new federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky.

FTP is inspired by the abolitionist movement against mass incarceration and the environmental justice movement, which have both been led by the communities of color who are hardest hit by prisons and pollution.Both these movements also have long histories of multi-racial alliances among those on the front lines of the struggle and those who can offer support and solidarity, which we aim to build on.

FTP has been informed by the ongoing research and analysis of the Human Rights Defense Center’s Prison Ecology Project, as well as the work of the Earth First! Prisoner Support Project and June11.org”

Ben Turk on Sept 9th Nationwide Prison Strike

The second segment in today’s show is an interview with Ben Turk conducted by members of The Prison Radio Show collective at CKUT, on the campus of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada about the prison strikes across the U.S. and the buildup towards calls for a general prisoner strike on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison uprising on September 9th.

Announcements

Bloc Party Updates

From the website, It’s Going Down dot org, the regular segment called Bloc Party is a great source for recent uprisings in the streets and in prisons around North America. We’d like to highlight a few of these items. First off, the article summarizes a number of the May Day
disturbances that took place last Sunday, including brief report-backs from May Day noise demos and street parties in NYC, Hamilton (Ontario) & Chicago, riots in Seattle and prison work strikes in Alabama at Holman, Elmore, and St Clair facilities. More details and photos from those prison strikes and solidarity protests, including ones in Minneapolis & Milwaukee plus arrestee support links can be found at http://supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org

Also from that post are announcements of the June 12th birthday of Jay Chase of the NATO3 who’s been struggling with some health and legal hurdles of recently as well as information on the upcoming June parole dates for longstanding Black Liberation political prisoners Robert Seth Hayes and jalil Muntaqim with links to their support campaigns and also a new mailing address for Joseph Buddenburg, recently sentenced to 2 years for a non-cooperating plea for releasing thousands of minks from
fur farms. We spoke about his case alongside that of Nicole Kissane.

Fire To The Prisons magazine

Finally, we’d like to share a part of the crowd sourcing request for the U.S.-based, English-language insurrectional anarchist journal, Fire To The Prisons which is asking for help in the publication of it’s 16th issue. In the request, FTTP describes the sorts of content it’s covered
and plans to cover, including wanting:

“to expand our coverage, scope, and the reach of the publication while remaining true to the spirit of Fire to the Prisons. We will continue with our long term commitment to counter-information, original writing and content, and the amplification of the anti-authoritarian/anti-prison/anti-repression struggle that you have come to expect from us.

We will have both a domestic and international voice this issue. While remaining true to reporting on repression and anti-prison resistance across the states, Canada, and Mexico, we have committed articles from abroad promising insight on struggles and happenings that will help to bridge and unify an array of social tensions through a mutual awareness and solidarity.

We truly want FTTP to become a global publication and one that links anarchists and other autonomous combatants together in a dialog about the commonalities that we all face, as well as a discussion on the actions and struggles that we can all engage in.

We will be covering the resurgence of fascism in mainstream American politics, as well as updates on communities resisting further eco-devastation across the states. We have committed articles from prisoners domestic and international. We have commitments from NYC Anarchist Black Cross to use the project as a resource for raising awareness on repression and prisoner status in North America. We will also focus on the pacification of favelas in Brazil, the current reality and history of anarchist struggle in Chile, and the refugee situation in Greece. We will have further reports on anti-police struggle across the
United States, and will be continuing a tradition of news on broader prisoner strikes across America since our last issue. We are also intent on original articles on indigenous resistance in western Canada. Plus accounts and updates of the struggle in Rojava and general Kurdistan. Also all our featured articles will be available in Spanish for free on our website.

We are a committed collective. We are prepared to invest a lot of time and energy into producing this project, but we ask any and all sympathetic readers to help us with printing and distribution. by donating to our funding page. To print 10,000 copies of this it will cost us $2,000 dollars. While in the past we have had to ask people to pay the postage to our distributor, we would like to be able to send out more copies for free, to encourage broader distribution. We are asking for another $2,000 dollars for this. With maximizing our distribution efforts through contacts and friends across the world, we can distribute and mail out almost all of the new issues to anyone interested in distributing it. This leads us to asking for $4,000 dollars. We know this is an ambitious amount, and most likely those supporting us aren’t very wealthy, but it will absolutely secure this project, and help with the expansion of our readership. We hope that reaching out this way will put a dent into that fiscal goal, as our collective members are all working people.”

This week’s show, we rebroadcast an interview from 2013 with Krow, aka Katie Kloth, followed by updates on the 2-week old hunger strike at OSP Youngstown, the release of the 5e3 prisoners in Mexico & recent metal, deathrock and punk from around the world.

Krow is an anarchist, environmental and indigenous rights activist. At the time of the original interview, Krow had been facing charges stemming from a protest where eco-activists found workers from Global Taconite, a mineral mining company attempting to extract iron ore from the hills of Iron County, Wisconsin, secretly test-drilling. Krow was charged with throwing a worker’s camera away and minor assault which was caught on a video. A link to the video will be included in this episode’s blog post.

Krow was sentenced to 9 months in jail this January, 2015. In addition, according to the Ashland Daily Press, Krow will have five years of probation with the felony charge and two years with the misdemeanor including a work release where they’ll be pressed to work a full-time job as a way of normalizing them and their activities. Otherwise known as domestication. Krow is now also facing charges from District Attorney Martin Lipske of bail jumping for allegedly participating in an anniversary protest in a “forbidden zone” in the Penokkee range controlled by Global Taconite along with 45 other people. Lipske appears to have it out for Krow, who had initially filed charges could have resulted in a 15 year sentence for Krow.

Also this hour we announce the recent news of the release of Amelie, Carlos & Fallon from prison in Mexico on March 13th. They were charged with a molotov attack January 5th of 2014 on a Nissan dealership and the neighboring government offices of the Mexican Department of Transportation and Communication and had faced serious charges relating to terrorism because people were in the government office at the time. The 3 collectively were known as the 5e3. Amelie and Fallon, both Quebecoise, were deported back to Canada. We’re happy that they’ve been able to rejoin their friends and loved ones and that Carlos Lopez Martin with his child.
To hear some words from Amelie & Fallon while they were imprisoned in Mexico, check out our website.
Translations of their letters can be found here: http://waronsociety.noblogs.org/?tag=5e3

On Monday March 16th, over 30 supermax prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary went on hunger strike. Warden Jay Forshey and OSP staff are refusing to meet their demands or negotiate with them. Some of the hunger strikers have not even been met and consulted with regarding their demands. Eleven prisoners remain on hunger strike and are committed to staying through to the end, if necessary.

This week, The Final Straw takes pleasure in re-presenting a conversation with Layla AbdelRahim about her book, “Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness”. She is an anarchaprimitivist who explores ideas of education, domestication and civilization in terms of childhood development and overall human health. In these excerpts from the conversation we define some terms and talk about instrumentalization of living things and symbolic thought and how they are used to shape the child’s mind into the civilized and non-empathic perspective. Info on the book can be found at http://www.fernwoodpublishing.ca

This week we get to speak with Amélie Trudeau and Fallon Rouiller. Amelie and Fallon, alongside Carlos Lopez Marin, make up the 5E3, who are being charged by the mexican state for an arson of a Nissan dealership and the neighboring ministry of communication and transportation in January of this year. We talk about prison, freedom, dignity, solidarity and more. For more info on the case of the 5E3, check out our episode of August 10th, 2014, where you can find links to sources of their writings and updates.

First, an update on the case of Luke O’Donovan and a quick conversation with a support person of his. Adam talks about the last-minute announcement of a change of the beginning of Luke’s trial to Tuesday, August 12th and gives a brief synopsis of the case. More info and updates can be found at http://letlukego.wordpress.com, including how to help to pack the courtroom in support of him.

Following that, you’ll hear a conversation with a supporter of the 5E3 and friend of Amélie Trudeau and Fallon Rouiller, the two Quebecois anarchists who, along with Carlos López Marin, make up the 5E3. The 5E3 are 3 anarchists arrested on the 5th of January and accused of taking part in a molotov cocktail attack on the Ministry of Communication and Transportation and a neighboring Nissan Dealership in Mexico City. We’ll talk about the mexican prison system, the political context within which insurrectional anarchism in mexico is traversing, about Prisoners’ Justice Day in Canada and abroad and much more. We’ll also touch briefly on the case of Nyki Kish, an anarchist convicted of stabbing and killing a college student while among a group of college students who were attacking homeless folks in Toronto. More on Nyki’s case can be found at http://www.freenyki.org
More on the 5E3 can be found at http://www.abajolosmuros.org
Donations to the 5E3 can be found here: http://www.clac-montreal.net/mx#_1 (make sure to include a note that it’s for the 5E3)
Many of their letters can be found at: http://www.sabotagemedia.anarkhia.org/tag/5e/
Also, more updates to come here: http://waronsociety.noblogs.org/?tag=5e-case

This week’s episode features the rest of a conversation with Layla AbdelRahim about her recent book, Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education. We played the start of this conversation near the end of last week‘s show and continue it throughout this hour. Layla talks about education, domestication, patriarchy, capitalism, instrumentalism, empathy and much more. More of her writings can be found at http://layla.miltsov.org/

Sean Swain’s segment this week talks about ISIL/ISIS, the crisis in Iraq and revisits the stupidity and cruel ignorance of U.S. intervention into Iraq since the 1980’s.

2nd, “On March 21st, 2012 Higinio Ochoa III aka w0rmer, was arrested and charged with hacking law enforcement agency websites and posting the personal information of police officers online, as well as being accused of defacing a government website in Alabama. Hig was part of an Anonymous crew called the Cabincr3w.” (Anon-Sweden support page). w0rmer will be released into a halfway house after 2 years of incarceration this August, however he’ll be forced to live in Austin, TX, 4 hours from where his wife and now-1-year-old son live. Support folks are trying to raise $6,000 to help cover the move and some living expenses until both find gainful employment in Austin. More info at: http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-the-ochoa-family-to-reunite/190052

This week’s show features mainly a dubbed interview by comrades at A-Radio Berlin with a member of a Comite Popular da Copa in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The interviewee speaks about the context of resistance in Brazil and how it’s developed, public discourse around elections, the cost of living, developments around the FIFA World Cup and upcoming Olympics in Brazil. He discusses the links between politicians supporting these huge events, the political power of the construction companies, the displacement of poor, urban peoples and the further gentrification of cities under the guise of facilitating these huge events that draw short term profits but cause longterm damages. Information about the Comite Popular da Copa in Sao Paolo can be found at: http://comitepopularsp.wordpress.com/

At about 40 minutes into the show, we begin presenting a conversation with Layla AbdelRahim about her recent book, “Wild Children – Domesticated Dreams: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness”. She is an anarchaprimitivist who explores ideas of education, domestication and civilization in terms of childhood development and overall human health. In this portion, we define some terms and talk about instrumentalization of living things and symbolic thought and how they are used to shape the child’s mind into the civilized and non-empathic perspective. Info on the book can be found at http://www.fernwoodpublishing.ca

Sean Swain, this week, talks about the corruption and enslavement involved in the construction of the Ohio State Capital building in Colombus.

Before we announce the show, we want to announce our presentation of
Sean Swain’s voice on our show for the first time in 8 weeks. Sean’s
GTL (GlobalTelLink, privatized prison phone company) and JPay (private company Sean’s critiqued before which handles, among other things, emails/commisary and other profitized elements of incarceration) accounts were suspended by the OSP administration, the office of Governor Kasich & the Ohio Highway Patrol/State Police. During those 8 weeks, Sean’s segments on The Final Straw (which were ostensibly a reason for his blackout) never stopped, as Sean smuggled scripts out of the Super-Duper-Uber-Mega-Ultra-Max in Youngstown. Congrats, Sean!

This week we play part two of Mel Bazil’s presentation from the 2014 Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire. He covers an array of concepts. He talks about the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Decolonization, infrastructure, false alternative energies and capitalism.

Mel also touches on the ideas around self-knowledge, Free Prior and Informed Consent between individuals and communities (http://unistotencamp.wordpress.com/free-prior-and-informed-consent-protocol/), and the framework of human/indigenous Rights versus Responsibilities to
the earth and to each other and to ourselves. This broadcast comes on the day that Mr. Bazil and other people struggling with the Unist’ot’en Action Camp expected an injunction against the action camp by the B.C.
government. Anarchists have been invited over the years to build relationships and struggle alongside this community and project, which brings interesting questions of overlaps and differences between anarchism(s) and indigenous cultures in resistance.

Vancouver Island Community Forest Action Network is a gateway for outside anarchists and activists to get involved in helping at Unist’ot’en: http://forestaction.wikidot.com/

This audio is from an almost hour and a half presentation that Mel gave on Saturday the 24th of May at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, entitled “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization.” Many thanks to CKUT Radio in Montreal for sharing this content with the Final
Straw. More info on CKUT can be found at www.ckut.ca

This week’s episode features a workshop by Mel Bazil, an indigenous Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en organizer, sovereigntist, and anarchist of the Unist’ot’en Action Camp. For folks in the listening audience, Unist’ot’en is located on unceded native lands in so-called British Colombia, Canada. More about the Unist’ot’en Action Camp can be found at unistotencamp.com

This audio is from an almost hour and a half presentation that Mel gave on Saturday the 24th of May at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, entitled “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization.” Many thanks to CKUT Radio in Montreal for sharing this content with the Final Straw. More info on CKUT can be found at www.ckut.ca

This week we’ll be presenting the first of two parts of Mel’s presentation, the second will be aired in coming weeks and linked together on the Final Straw website soon.

Firstly though, an announcement about the health of longterm political prisoner, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. The following text was found at http://rashidmod.com, where one can seek further updates on the situation.

This week’s show features the second part of my conversation with Maria about anarchist perspectives on the student strikes in Montreal,
Quebec. Maria continues to draw the history of this last year of student strikes that have developed into a nascent social strike and talks about the call to help block the start of the next semester in early August of this year

The second half of this episode features music from and about the struggle of Miners against the bosses and the state and for survival and self-determination. The playlist can be found here.